Glory to Facebook

Yes I said it. Not a popular opinion I know, but Facebook can make amazing serendipitous things happen. To wit, in just one week in Slovenia I ended up contacting and meeting two friends I haven’t seen in 20 years. One, because Facebook suddenly suggested I contact him (because it tracked my location and saw I was physically near him? May be, who knows). The other because she randomly saw me in Piran and was able to contact me through messenger by recalling my name by looking through a shared friend’s contacts. We later met up and traded travel stories.

When in a new place, there’s no substitute for hanging out with a local . Jaka, a friend from college, took me to amazing hiking trails I almost certainly wouldn’t have discovered by myself. He also explained where to find authentic Slovenian food, which has apparently retreated to Inns and mountain huts, and took me to some of the best.

Walking up Smartna Gora and Vishnevik, we had a chance to catch up and remember that we’ve had similar disrupted childhoods, leaving our countries of birth as kids, resulting in similar social experiences. “Why does it seem so difficult to make friends among people who have always lived in one culture for us (who have feet in two)?” I asked. He was observing that although he was born in Slovenian and now has lived there for eight years, since moving back, most of his friends were international. I mused that we have the same experience -- despite Masha and I growing up in the US, most of our friends are either Russian-speakers or from elsewhere in the world.

“It’s curiosity, I think,” Jaka answered. “Because we span these multiple cultures, it gives us a different perspective, a curiosity about other ones. Slovenians who haven’t lived elsewhere just know the one way of doing things. You do it differently? OK, good for you.” Somehow that thought has stuck with me as much as the two peaks we conquered.

Thanks Facebook!